Stained Glass
by Anna McNarin
Summary: I jumped on the Song Shuffle bandwagon and this is what I got. Ignore crap summary. Rated T for mild language.


**Big Time by Peter Gabriel**

Arnold sat on the side of his stoop just after dark, watching the lights slowly coming on to chase away what little stars could be seen, tapping his foot to a beat in his head. Such an odd little place he lived in, a compact world full of people and endless miles of streets. Ah, but that wasn't what had him staring at a dead sky dreaming, yesterday was yesterday, tomorrow was tomorrow. Tomorrow was the day he left, tomorrow was the day he went to Spain, or maybe Australia. He could always decided on the way, no reason to rush when anywhere would do. Tomorrow.

* * *

**Love Me Dead by Ludo**

Oh God she felt sick. How could he stand the girl? Forget that she loved him more than the tramp ever could, but really!

_Come on, Arnold-o, you're not that dense._ She thought, shooting him a look that spoke not only her thoughts, but that she might be suffering from food poisoning at the same time.

The blond boy shrugged in Helga's direction when the subject of her internal rant turned away, oblivious to the mental conversation going on behind her back. Yeah, he knew Helga loved him, and remarkably, it hadn't phased either of them. Except, maybe the fact that he was willing to listen to her more when it came to his well being.

A sigh escaped him. Helga was right, this girl was a drag.

* * *

**Down and Out by Tantric **

Gertie "Pookie" Shortman was an odd woman with little doubt of the fact, not that it bothered her. Truthfully, she found it funny. After all, granted with extraordinary health in her old age she was still that- old. No sense in going off and acting like she was a young lady all the time, could be hazardous. She couldn't relate to the song on the radio at all, but the looks from her grandson and his friends, her own husband and the boarders, was reason enough to blast it to high Heaven and rock out.

* * *

**Eighteen and Life by Skid Row**

Ludwig sat on the bleachers in the currently deserted Gerald Field listening to the traffic echoing off the streets around the block and beyond. For all his intelligence, it hadn't saved him from the drug that is boredom. Frustrated, he kicked the tall, brown bottle off the step, sighing happily as he heard the remaining contenents spill out like the ground itself was sucking it up. Yes, he would pick it up, as always.

* * *

**I'll Wait by Van Halen**

What utter fools. Did they not see her for who she was? The fire that burned in her eyes in a desperate need to prove herself, regardless of how. Oh Lord save him, Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd was hauntingly beautiful. Her body a shell to those eyes of gold, burning brightly only in the sun. He could free that fire. It would be so easy to take her hand and dance her and her perceptions of the world around her off a bridge.

* * *

**I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters**

Gerald watched his best friend closely, once again trapped in yet another argument with one Helga Geraldine Pataki. He never told anyone it actually kind of bugged her middle name was the feminie of his first, but what could you do. He had to hand to the girl though, she was sure passionate. Crazy, manipulative, and possibly bi-polar, but passionate and Arnold matched her word for word.

* * *

**Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold**

Mother fucking smoothies! Again! Passed out on the bar table like some common run of the mill drunk whore. God, it made his blood boil. Sure he screwed up the kids names every now and then, and he wasn't verbally affectionate all that often, it didn't mean she had to drown herself in vodka and peach just to try and taste innocence again. The large man sat in the stool next to his petite wife, shaking her hand off the cup she clutched like a girl to a doll. He downed the last of it in a single gulp.

* * *

**Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce**

Olga Pataki brought her dainty hands to her mouth in a gasp. She was simply beside herself, tears welling up in her cornflower eyes. The video played on, and it was all she could do to keep her mournful hiccups to herself. Oh, forget history, had she known . . . no, she would have stayed. It was only right. They died for her, how shallow was she to prove herself to be by leaving? So she stayed, saltine pearls slipping quietly down pale satin cheeks, smearing her light powder blush, and watched. Blinking away a sudden up rise of emotion, she was proud to say she only averted her eyes the once. It probably would have happened more often, but fear of guilt kept her head high. One thing was for sure though, she would not let another day pass by without acknowledging the men and women of her country.

* * *

**Skin by Oingo Boingo**

What were they doing? Could either of them really answer? No, she didn't think so, but she would take it all the same. Just this once, she would let silence reign in the dim light of the YMAA gymnasium. Perhaps Lila had turned him down again, or maybe Abner was ill and his grandfather forced him to come, maybe he came for her. The real her, for that's who was dancing with him now. A silent poetess of a child clinging softly to the tops of his shoulders, fingers curling at the cusp of his neck in an action mirrored by him upon her back.

* * *

**Cadence of Her Last Breath by Nightwish**

And the rain poured, falling past his eyes, nose pressed to the pane. A deep breath to cloud his vision of the outside, to make believe she was there, and would pull him out of his reverie with an offer of pop corn and tales by Zeus' light. Together they would sit on his bed and stare out the skylight, watching the Heaven's cry, and smile. Did she even like the rain?

"Mother . . ."

* * *

_I'm a fan of joining bandwagons later than everyone else, so I decided to do this one. I used an online play list of mine and jumped head first into writing. The rules as far as I was able to gather were that you only had the length of the song in which to write. That made it easy and hard at the same time, but I had fun, which is what counts. I'm sorry I don't have a whole lot of variety as far as the characters I chose to write about, I just never really got into the heads of more of the secondary cast of HA!. If you want to listen to the play list I used, message me. I'll send you the link._

_If confused, see below._

1. Big Time by Peter Gabriel

_I always saw Arnold as a dreamer. The fictional city of Hillwood, supposedly a mix of Seattle, Brooklyn, and other major cities, gave me a sense of belonging to a small town mentality wise. Heck, Hey Arnold! The Movie proves the "sense of community" issue, seeing how that was one of the major parts of it. I think this paragraph in the song sums up Arnold's restless side quite nicely: "the place where I come from is a small town, they think so small, they use small words -but not me, I'm smarter than that, I worked it out, I've been stretching my mouth, to let those big words come right out."_

2. Love Me Dead by Ludo

_The premise for this is loose, I'll admit it. The song is great fun, though. Basically, it's Helga and Arnold sharing one of those conversations friends can have where it's nothing but gestures, facial expressions, and loose lip reading. My idea was that the girl the singer is talking about is Arnold's current companion, and no she isn't canon.  
_

3. Down and Out by Tantric

_Couldn't think of a single character to relate this song to, but I could very easily see Pookie head banging in the kitchen decked out in a toga. So imagine her cooking and blasting this song loud enough to hear down the street. Oh, and their last name is Shortman, or so says in the trivia section._

4. Eighteen and Life by Skid Row

_Fairly certain the episode was "New Bully", where Ludwig was introduced and he stated that he was fresh out of juvenile hall. Intelligence and boredom can lead to trouble, and I saw the song as a look at what could happen to him. Warning, if you search out the original video on youtube it is big on 1980's cheese._

5. I'll Wait by Van Halen

_Imagine the gang grown up. Rhonda is a high fashion model, and Curly has every magazine she's ever been in._

6. I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters

_Essentially, Gerald can't decide if Helga should live or die, and he sees the song as summing up the argument between her and Arnold._

7. Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold

_Bob and Miriam Pataki deal with life._

8. Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce

_This one was hard for me, but upon reading the lyrics it reminded me of my high school history class and the graphic video my teacher showed. I imagine Olga would be quite moved by such a film._

9. Skin by Oingo Boingo

_Make up your own beginning and end, I only wrote the middle. It's Helga and Arnold at a school dance, getting along by choosing to stay silent, because confrontation only makes them fight and for whatever reason they want to be exactly where they are._

10. Cadence of Her Last Breath

_Arnold thinks of his mother, Stella, for in truth he never knew her, not really._

_If you've read this far: Thanks!_


End file.
